Affiliate Classes

[Ayame]

What do you think of having Affiliate Classes, like Junior Affiliate and Top Affiliate?
Personally, I think they are pointless, and sometimes degrading. People rarely go to a site that's a Junior Affiliate because they know that these sites aren't considered good or get a very low amount of hits. It's hard for a site to have respect if it's on a separate page from the others with a long list of rejects who the webmaster is passing off a 'Mini Affiliates' or something like that.
I can see Top Affiliates if some sites are way better than the others/outstanding, but anything else is really pushing it.

 

[Lucas₇₅₅]

I agree. I think that a 'Senior Affiliates' thing could be good for sites that have been affiliates for a long time, or are older sites with more experienced webmasters, but anything else would be like putting them on a different page.

 

[Faltzer]

Categorizing affiliates is silly, and it makes no sense at all. In the end, you're still sticking a button/link on your website. I don't know who started this thing, but it's gotten pathetic very fast. While some websites are better than others and it has felt satisfying at some point to be labeled as one of the top affiliates, I admit it is pretty dumb now. Just stick your affiliates in one category.

 

[Shadowstar]

Absolutely rediculous. Although it's useful for me, not having a big site and seeing as some afflate requirements cross the line a bit.

 

[Retsu]

The entire concept of affiliates is pretty stupid tbh.

 

[Evolutionary]

Stupid and pointless. <That and what everyone else said.

 

[Ayame]

Categorizing affiliates is silly, and it makes no sense at all. In the end, you're still sticking a button/link on your website. I don't know who started this thing, but it's gotten pathetic very fast. While some websites are better than others and it has felt satisfying at some point to be labeled as one of the top affiliates, I admit it is pretty dumb now. Just stick your affiliates in one category.

Yes, it may be good for some people to feel better for a couple of SECONDS, but everyone else just feels annoyed.

I saw this one horrid site- it had a Pokemon in its name, and the Pokemon's name was misspelled- with almost no content. They couldn't spell and made no effort to type correctly. They were also very immature. Almost all of their content was copy and pasted pages like Raise a Pikachu or chatrooms. They had affiliates, mostly really bad sites, and they had categories. One of the low sites was way, way better than their site. It actually showed originality and was a region project with pretty good artwork. Not the best site ever, but infinitely better than the site on which they were categorized as Low. (This was one of the ranks, believe it or not.)
Most of the High-ranked sites were terrible.

The sad thing is that the site I was talking about before had nine visitors while I was there- it was pretty popular, or at least fun to laugh at.
(As I type this morning, eleven people are on the bad site. Wow.)

 

[Lucas₇₅₅]

The entire concept of affiliates is pretty stupid tbh.

How so?

 

[Ayame]

How so?

Maybe Retsu thinks the practice is silly because it is sort of ridiculous if you think about it. I mean, someone linking to some else's site and they link back? That could collect hits, but it's kind of weird.
Going out to get as many links as you can, and having weird requirements makes it even more bizarre.

And for a few hits that trickle in...
It's such a fad that it isn't even a fad anymore. Everyone is afraid to be independent because affiliates are expected of everyone.

That's my guess as to why Retsu doesn't care for the practice.

 

[Harley Quinn]

The entire concept of affiliates is pretty stupid tbh.

Thank you; this whole affiliates business has gotten way out of hand. I mean, it's ok to have a partner/sister site or something like that, but why all these other links? I think it kinda takes away from a website's uniqueness-it's like saying "Hey, look at these 20 other websites that are just like mine!"

Rankings are pretty dumb as well. Either someone meets your requirements or they don't-you don't need any "junior affies" to make the right navbar longer.

 

[Butterfree]

I really, really don't see what being against affiliates in general is supposed to be other than "I want to be cool by being against something everybody does!"

Maybe Retsu thinks the practice is silly because it is sort of ridiculous if you think about it. I mean, someone linking to some else's site and they link back? That could collect hits, but it's kind of weird.

...what? How in the world is it "weird"? It's the most natural thing in the world; link exchanges have been done since the dawn of the Web. People want their sites to get attention from a certain demographic; the demographic of a Pokémon website is Pokémon fans, and thus other Pokémon websites are where you would want your link to be. Other people would generally rather not advertise your site for free, so they ask that you link back in exchange (good for them, since they will also get advertising among their demographic).

Going out to get as many links as you can, and having weird requirements makes it even more bizarre.

More links means more advertising among your demographic; having quality control for the sites you affiliate with is natural since generally you do not want to advertise sites you don't feel deserve the attention of your visitors or that you think will not attract many of the right demographic to your site. Additionally, a lot of sites linking to you raises your search engine ranks. How is that bizarre?

Affiliates are the source of quite a lot of visitors for a website, not "a few that trickle in"; I know this considerably better than you, being a long-time webmaster who has had a large number of affiliates.

In addition to all marketing considerations, affiliation is a web of personal endorsement around the webmasters. I want to link to reasonably decent Pokémon sites, return visitors be damned. They're just a nice bonus. What's more, the prospect of affiliating with a big, famous site is an incentive for webmasters to do better; it overall improves website quality in the fandom.

I think it kinda takes away from a website's uniqueness-it's like saying "Hey, look at these 20 other websites that are just like mine!"

How does a website become less unique because it happens to link to other websites about the same basic subject matter? It is not as if visitors to my website would think it is the only Pokémon website in the world if I did not have affiliates, and if that were the case I would not want them to think it.

Affiliate rankings can be useful, if you don't mind linking to poorer sites; the best would then get the top spots and have images shown to link to them, while others have less noticeable text links. Again, it's an incentive for the webmaster to improve, because they want to qualify for being a "Top Affiliate". I really don't see how it is degrading to have lower affiliate rankings, provided that the webmaster applies for that ranking; it could be argued that it is insulting to place a website on a list that explicitly specifies it as being worse than a bunch of other websites, but it's still a link. If you've just started a site and are aware that you don't yet qualify for major affiliate positions, it still helps your site get some attention while it grows to be on a "junior affiliate" list somewhere. On the other hand, having a special page for "mini-affiliates" or something, with just about no quality requirements to get on it, is highly unlikely to be helpful to anyone, since visitors to the site have no reason to view the mini-affiliate page in the first place.

 

[Ivy Newton]

Advertising is weird. That's all there is to it.
Affiliates are no more or less weird than any other type of advertising.

I do think classes are a tad bit pointless though, I'd rather just reject sites that aren't good (of course giving them suggestions to improve) and save some bandwidth rather than wasting a webpage

 

[Ayame]

Advertising is weird. That's all there is to it.
Affiliates are no more or less weird than any other type of advertising.

It may be weird, but that does not make it bad. Advertising is extremely important, and I prefer sites that approve of each other linking to each other to lots of ads.

 

[Eevee]

affiliating is already just a big circlejerk amongst mediocre sites hoping to attract attention from other mediocre sites

do we really need to make it worse

 

[Ivy Newton]

It may be weird, but that does not make it bad. Advertising is extremely important, and I prefer sites that approve of each other linking to each other to lots of ads.

I never said it was bad, just that it's weird.

 

[#1 bro]

Affiliate classes are for losers - if you feel the need to separate your links into groups, maybe you should think about doing some quality control and cutting out all but the highest group on the ladder.

 

[ultraviolet]

I can understand having Affliates, but Junior Affies, etc? It's just a stupid practice that people do to feel superior in their little corner of the web. If you affliate with a site, it should be because you like the site and/or recommend it and want to be affliated with it, not just some stupid popularity bullshit criteria so you can be site x's top affy.

 

[Will_Absol]

Meh, Maybe friends, but apart from normal affiliates and that, no.

 

[Clio]

I think spliting affiliates into classes is unjustified. Everyone needs a fair chance in having their website noticed just as much as the next big Pokémon site out there. I just list my affiliates in alphabetical order.

 

[Pii]

If me I only make it normal affie and top one. I not rank coz I don't think it's fair enough